Spotlight
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Lebanon UNIFIL vehicle torched as Hezbollah supporters block airport road anew A vehicle emblazoned with the logo of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon was torched late Friday as supporters of Hezbollah again blocked the r... 1
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Lebanon Hariri hints at return to politics, urges Shiite Duo not to be 'obstruction force' In a speech to a crowd of supporters at his father's tomb on Friday, ex-PM Saad Hariri stopped short of announcing a return to politics, but did ...
The Central Intelligence Agency has been operating form the U.S. embassy compound in Awkar to recruit agents to spy on Hizbullah, the party’s al-Manar TV station reported on Friday.
It said the CIA’s current chief in Lebanon is Daniel Patrick Mcfeely, 45, who replaced Louis Kahi after quitting in 2009.

The French foreign ministry said Friday Paris did not have enough information that allows it to link between the attack on its troops in southern Lebanon and the active role France is playing concerning the situations in Syria.
“We have not yet linked” between the attack and the Syrian crisis, foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters.

Hizbullah on Friday condemned the bomb attack earlier in the day on a French UNIFIL patrol in southern Lebanon, as the opposition March 14 camp claimed the incident was a message from Syria and that Hizbullah was "the messenger."
Opposition MP Marwan Hamadeh immediately blamed Damascus for the attack, saying it was orchestrated with the help of its Lebanese ally Hizbullah.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Friday called on the Druze of Syria not to engage in the repression of anti-regime protests, stressing that engaging the Druze in the “acts of killing” is a “historic mistake.”
In an interview with the London-based, pan-Arab weekly The Majalla, Jumblat said: “In addition to the (predominantly Druze) region of Jabal al-Arab, there is another bleeding region in Syria, the region of Daraa, and the Druze should not engage in a Syrian axis that is against the (Sunni) majority.”

Speaker Nabih Berri condemned on Friday the attack on UNIFIL and the national security, saying it aims at destabilizing the South.
“The terrorist attack that targeted the UNIFIL forces aims at destabilizing Lebanon and the South,” a statement issued by Berri’s office said.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe condemned Friday's bomb attack on a U.N. peacekeeping patrol in Lebanon in which five French troops were wounded, saying France would not be intimidated by such "vile acts.”
"I condemn in the strongest terms the cowardly attack that was carried out against UNIFIL this morning," Juppe added in a statement.
March 14 opposition MP Marwan Hamadeh blamed Damascus for Friday's attack on a UNIFIL patrol in the southern city of Tyre, saying it was orchestrated with the help of its ally Hizbullah.
"It is clear that Syria was behind what happened today and the messenger was Hizbullah," Hamadeh told Agence France Presse. "Nothing happens in that region without Hizbullah's approval."
Prime Minister Najib Miqati condemned on Friday an attack on a UNIFIL patrol in the southern coastal city of Tyre, saying such bombings would not affect the mission of the peacekeepers.
“These crimes don’t only target the international (peacekeeping) forces but also the security and stability of all Lebanon and the south,” Miqati said as he headed a meeting of top security officials at the Grand Serail.

French ambassador Denis Pietton stressed that his country didn’t reject leading the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which undergoes a rotation principle between the three European countries that have the wider participation in it.
“We are satisfied with the amount of our participation in the UNIFIL, but we didn’t reveal any desire to command” the peacekeeping forces, Pietton said in an interview with As Safir newspaper published on Friday.

Five French soldiers and two civilians were wounded on Friday by a powerful roadside bomb that targeted a UNIFIL patrol in the southern coastal city of Tyre, a spokesperson and media reports said.
UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said the 5 peacekeepers were injured when an explosion targeted their patrol in an area south of Tyre around 9:30 am. He did not specify to which contingent they belonged to.
